Montana’s fox squirrel record is largely the story of one valley. Of 415 records, 295 come from Missoula County alone, with smaller numbers from Cascade, Flathead, Yellowstone, and Lewis and Clark counties, a map of towns and wooded river bottoms rather than the state’s wild backcountry.
A big-tree squirrel in a conifer state
The fox squirrel is the largest tree squirrel native to North America, built for life among mature broadleaf trees where it can travel the canopy and bury nuts in open ground below. Montana’s conifer forests suit it poorly, so it concentrates where big cottonwoods and old shade trees grow, along river corridors and in parks and older neighborhoods. Giant Springs State Park on the Missouri River and riverside ground like Kelly Island Fishing Access Site mark exactly that kind of setting.
Busy in every season
Unlike the ground squirrels that vanish underground for winter, fox squirrels stay active all year, and Montana’s records appear in every month. Activity crests in April as spring feeding picks up, and the fall months go to caching nuts and seeds that, together with stored fat, carry the animal through the cold.
Status in Montana
NatureServe ranks the fox squirrel S4, Apparently Secure, in Montana, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
